::Amber Fort, Jaipur::

            We got on the bus we reserved from Agra to Jaipur.  It wasn’t as nice as we thought it would be (stupid service fees)—and it took forever to get there and this guy made us switch seats (we’re not sure why, but in retrospect we think it was to move us away from the group of guys in the back of the bus) so we waited and waited and waited and made to Jaipur at 11pm. 

            In the morning, our guy, Umesh, picked us up to go on our elephant tour.  We drove up and could see the Amber Fort on the hill and it looked really cool with its red walls shrouded in the midst.  I’m still surprised winter is an actual thing here—it was very cool. 

            I was really curious how they were going to get us on the elephants.  (I don’t know how the actual drivers got onto the elephant’s necks—because all of them were already up and driving when we got there).   So the way they did it is have us climb up this steps onto a high wall and then the elephant and driver come right up to the ledge and you can sit in the little litter seat strapped on the elephants back.  It was surprisingly easy and a little disappointingly not scary—because I was looking for the accomplishment of getting up on an elephant when all I had to do was sit on my but to get on… it wasn’t my greatest accomplishment.

            We started off and on the way up I could see down to a little lake that was full of this garden which our tourguide later told us is the royal’s garden for saffron and other herbs.  The old gardens have star patterned stone hedges around the different plants.  (Descriptions don’t do much good.  Pictures to come).

            I found out the driver’s name (forgot it) and he told me my elephant’s name was “Pinkie.”  Then he got snakey-eyed and said he was lucky so I stopped talking to him and I didn’t give him a tip.  :P

            Luckily they let the elephants go home early afternoon so they aren’t forced to work all day. J  I’m glad for that, because it must be very tiring to ride people up and down that hill everyday.  One of the tourists held out a bill to one of the elephants, and it picked it up out of her hand with his trunk, and then lifted it up to the driver.

            Part of Amber Fort is closed off because it’s still privately owned by the old king’s family, but our tourguide told us that the parts we saw were bought by the government in the… forgot the year…  They had rooms on two sides of the fort for the two different seasons of the year (they switched sides for the coolest side depending on the placement of the sun). 

            The front rooms were the private rooms of the wives and the king and behind these was a huge courtyard full of other rooms for other women (the jnana).  I might have purposefully got lost for a second in there and then accidentally got lost in there because I wanted to look around more and our tourguide kept giving us time limits…

            We saw these little monkeys right up close and some nice Pakistani tourists gave us some nuts to feed to them.  One took a cookie and a peanut right out of Alexis’s hand.  They were adorable.

One of the incredible elephants and drivers that helps us tourist people up to the fort.

Amber fort in the Diwan-e-aam.  The place where the common people could wait to talk to the minister or the king.

Inside the Diwan-e-khas.  The king's private audience hall.  Those are all little mirror pieces.

Funny how monkeys is one of the highlights for us.

Our monkey friends.

Gotta love detail work!  These kings were not skimpy.

I think this was one of the king's wives' rooms or something.  It was a newer part of the building.

The Zanana/Harem where I got lost.

This bin used to be filled with food for poor people by the temples outside.

Our drive by the Hawa Mahal.  Unfortunately I missed out on going in, but I'm hoping I can come back  on my last day in India.